chapter 23

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Evangelion left not long afterwards. The Messenger stared blankly at the fire for several hours, then sighed and reached for her travelling cloak and shawl. It was time to warn the Ancients that the Key had been taken. It was her duty, after all.

After she had left, the cottage door opened by itself, and then closed again twenty minutes later.

* * * * *

Far far below the depths of the earth, Evangelion arrived at the sealed door, its single rune staring outwards like an evil eye. It was a massive stone slab, carved from top to bottom with the story of the Ancients and their cursed fate. Evangelion took a deep breath, pulled back his hood, and stepped forward.

"Regret," he intoned, and there was a click. Something clicked and clacked, and the door silently slide open. Evangelion hesitated, then stepped inside the dark frame of the door.

* * * * *

There was a sensation of time and space shuffling each other around like a bunch of playful kittens, and Evangelion felt reality warp and twist for a brief moment. And then...

It was always dark in this room, despite the abundance of tall (albeit heavily curtained) windows and large (albeit grimy) domes on the ceiling. The very air in the room strongly hinted to anyone who breathed it that visitors were not welcome here. There were shadows everywhere, and it was in fact so dark that these shadows had their own shadows. In this room, stray beams of light that wandered in would hastily apologize and hurriedly leave as soon as possible.

Evangelion stood with his back to one of the walls in the room. The heavy silence in the room swirled by silently. The entire chamber was otherwise empty, and it was as eerie as a tomb. A very large, very quiet, very shadowy and very dark tomb.

Thunder rolled overhead, and there was a flash of lightning a few seconds after. Thunder rolled a second time, and then it started to rain.

It began slowly, then became louder and louder as raindrops pelted the building. More lightning, and more thunder. The rain assaulted the walls relentlessly, and outside the wind howled viciously.

And Evangelion began to move. Like the rain, he moved slowly at first, as he raised one gloved hand, clutching what appeared to be a rusted dagger. Then, he leapt forward and blurred. The shadows twisted. Evangelion, moving faster and faster now as he flew across the length of the chamber, slashed wildly, and the shadows twisted and turned, whipping at Evangelion as he shot across the room. There, on the other side of the room, was the Key on a pedestal, but in front of it...

...was Septaphim. Something was wrong, however... he looked dark and translucent, like a shadow, and he was shrouded in shadows. He stared at Evangelion with eyes that were pure white, and Evangelion stopped, poised in the middle of the room, his great coat draped around him like the death shroud.

"Why have you come here?" spoke Septaphim, and it sounded like a thousand voices whispering at the same time, echoing across the depths of eternity. "This is no place for you: leave now, or die..."

Evangelion twirled his dagger defiantly. "No. I have come this far, and I will not leave without the Key."

Septaphim laughed, and a thousand whispering voices giggled and hissed. "Fool! Do you really think that you can defeat me? Do you not know who I am?" Tendrils of shadows shot out of the darkness, and before Evangelion could react, they wrapped themselves around his right arm, and squeezed. There was a crack of bone, and his dagger clattered onto the floor. Evangelion screamed. It did not sound very pleasant. "I am Septaphim, the last surviving member of the Ancient Council, and you are a mere insect in my presence! I can crush the very life out of you with a single thought, and you dare to stand here and defy my will?"

Evangelion groaned on the floor, clutching his arm. It was utterly crushed, dangling uselessly from one side of his body. The shadows around him coiled and writhed in anticipation of the kill.

"And now, you will die!" roared Septaphim. His white eyes blazed with a burning fury, and all around Evangelion, the shadows swirled like a whirlpool, then enveloped Evangelion for a final embrace.

* * * * *

The mad old man paused in his story. Seraph, Cantrip and Penelope sat around him, enthralled by the tale. He grinned. "Yes, yes, this was the very same Septaphim, oh yes, but he had been twisted and corrupted beyond all recognition. His sole reason for being was the protection of the Key, and he grew increasingly paranoid, fearing that Arathea's Gifts would fall into the wrong hands. And so he hid in the tunnels deep underground, living like a vermin, scraping an existence from the cold, dank earth. He built for himself a sanctuary accesible only by the sealed portal, and he mastered the shadows."

"His art was one that was practised by the cruelest Demons: it binds the souls of your enemies into shadows, denying them eternal peace, and dooming them to an eternity under your command. Septaphim became fallen, and his obsession with the Key gnawed at his very soul."

* * * * *

As the shadows closed in, Evangelion opened his greatcoat, and pulled out a short, grey stick. He shut his eyes, bit one end of the stick, and pulled.

Bounty hunters travel to many dangerous corners of the earth, and so they are always well equipped for all eventualities. There are few things more useful than as a stick of magnesium metal, packed tightly in a tube, to be ignited in times of emergency. Such times would most definitely include being assaulted by homicidal shadows out for your blood.

The chamber lit up like the sun as the flare went off. The shadows wailed as the searing light sliced into them, and they retreated, howling. Evangelion dropped the burning flare and shot forward again. Even with his eyes shut, his vision was momentarily lost, and his eyes burned. He had a few moments to move, before the darkness returned.

A few moments was all he needed.

Septaphim stumbled backwards, taken by surprise. Stabbing him would probably not achieve much, and in any case, Evangelion's fighting arm was completely useless now. Instead, he reached into his great coat a second time, and pulled out nothing at all. He whirled behind Septaphim's powerful figure, and slapped nothing in particular into the back of the Ancient's head.

The last remaining Gyst rune in existence, stolen from the cottage of the Messenger, burned itself into Septaphim's skull, and Septaphim collapsed, now living a world that was completely inside his own head. For a moment, there was a horrible scream as thousands of shadows wailed, and then the sound faded, leaving Evangelion alone in the dark chamber, save for Septaphim's immobile body.

Evangelion was breathing deeply now, as the adrenaline coursed through his veins. He walked over to the pedestal, and took the Key: a hexagonal shaped metal object, with a single rune carved in the middle... the rune of regret.

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